Perkasie Backs Solid-waste Plan Glass Recyclers Ask For Help In Finding New Site

March 11, 1986|by CHUCK AYERS, The Morning Call

Perkasie last night became the second municipality in the Upper Bucks Solid Waste Group to approve an agreement to proceed with plans to meet the state's Solid Waste Management Plan.

Under the articles of incorporation approved by council, the borough will participate with Quakertown, Richland Township and Sellersville to meet the tasks not previously addressed in a feasibility study undertaken by the group last year.

About half the state's 13 requirements must yet be met before construction of a waste-to-energy facility will be considered.

The agreement provides a one-year deadline to meet the final phase of state act.

A related issue was brought to council's attention by Walter Wimmer, president of the Brothers of the Brush, a borough-based glass recycling organization.

Wimmer asked the borough to help find and construct a facility to store glass collected in theborough and Quakertown, a request that lay dormant for about nine months.

The organization must stop storing its glass at its location in East Rockhill Township by the end of April because of complaints from neighbors, Wimmer said.

Because the group had received no response from Quakertown, Wimmer said, "It's kind of up to Perkasie, I guess. If they want us to collect and crush the bottles and so forth, we're going to need a place to store them."

Wimmer said a storage bin for the glass would have to be approximately 20-30 feet long, at least 10-feet wide and four-feet high.

The group had tentatively located another site in East Rockhill on which to build a storage facility, and had asked Quakertown and Perkasie to each contribute $1,500 toward its construction. The group would have put up another $1,500, Wimmer said.

The site, however, is now unavailable, according to Wimmer.

Wimmer said unless a location is found and some provision made for storage, the group's glass collection and recycling efforts would cease.

"It's up to you people now whether we continue or it falls by the wayside . . . we're at the end of the road," he said.

To a question whether the group would continue collections in Quakertown if the borough does not contribute to keep the Brothers in business, Wimmer responded that the group would most likely would not.

The money raised through the collections will be used toward the Perkasie Fire Co.'s upcoming centennial celebration.

The developer of a detention basin in the Park Ridge development will have 30 days to bring the basin to acceptable standards or face the prospect of the borough completing the facility using the developer's money held in escrow.

The issue arose when councilman Clyde Powell noted that the borough never acted on a resolution that had been passed two years ago to construct a fence around the basin.

Borough Manager Gary Nace said the fence had never been constructed because the borough was waiting for Axelrod Construction, developer of the large housing project and basin, to meet conditions stipulated when the project was initially approved five years ago.

Before the borough takes over the basin and constructs a fence around it, Nace said, the borough wanted it to meet specifications.

Among the problems with the basin are an inadequate spillway and grading problems, Nace said.

In other action, council awarded a $3,600 engineering study of the Perkasie Park Watershed, north of the railroad embankment at South Seventh Street, to evaluate the feasibility of constructing a detention basin or other drainage control structures upstream to control water run-off.